Everything Retail

#premsgramabhojana

Since some time had been exploring various restaurants cafes etc. in an attempt to understand the restaurant business. Found quite a few interesting ones .Each of these cafés/ restaurants were based on different theme , had a purpose apart from being profitable and interestingly were all doing well. Yet another common factor is all these places were beautiful houses converted to the restaurants. That gave these place a homely feeling unlike the commercial ones.

One of the café was a book store cum library cum café. A couple who loved reading converted their beautiful 3 storied house into a this café. The place is full of books. Apart from this it has a lot of open space. Infact one of the floor is empty with a just a stage. As the library conducts lots of activities like the book release story telling, drama etc. At any point in time the place is crowded with people across ages from a four-year old kid who came with her parents for the story telling session or a 80-year-old lady who came for the book release . The day I visited there was infact both in different time schedules. The library also sell various books. Infact the founder states that he does not believe in the bill conversion concept as almost every customer buys a book there as he has books in various languages , various fields which are not readily available elsewhere. This he says is his hall-mark. While people loved to spend time reading, watching listening etc there, he identified a demand for tea coffee and some light snacks. Thus his bakery business started. Today he has a well-known brand of bakery products which is sold across the city with different retailers. Yet at heart he remains a book lover and wish to contribute in building the reading habit of people. The story telling session book release etc which do not charge for attending are the major attraction for people who tend to remain loyal to the library. So here is a person who does not believe in the normal marketing strategies and statistics just follows his heart and does well.

The second café was into healthy eating, fitness, organic etc positioned as a yoga studio and healthy food restaurant. This was started by 2 women who were into fitness. The food offered were the modern-day food with the healthy twist e.g. momos made of ragi, a pizza made of amaranthus flour base, scrambled tofu wrap with beetroot etc. The café is on multiple level with each floor having a different theme. The studio has aerial yoga, aerobics, kallari does classes on growing one’s own vegetables etc. The duo believe in the concept that healthy food can be tasty also. Through this they wish to bring a healthy lifestyle in society through a combination of exercise and healthy eating

The third one is purely based on eating and eating along and does not have any other aspects. But it’s not one of the run of the mill types. This restaurant serves dishes purely made of millets and other healthy rice like red rice black rice. Does not use white rice, refined flour, sugar, baking soda, artificial flavours etc. Right from the idlis, dosa, sweets, rotis etc. all are made of millets. The flavours are the ones which was lost long ago by the present generation expecting a fast convenient food. This is an endevour by a farmer’s son who after globe-trotting wanted to go back to his roots of eating millets. An attempt in his own words to reduce his sins for having sold unhealthy food to customers in the name of achieving the targets. An attempt to provide a healthy and tasty option to the customers and making the traditional recipes fashionable.

Here each of these place has created a niche for itself ,identified a gap, were passion turned to profession, an aim of giving back to the society, not driven by numbers and promoted using the non-conventional medium yet are successful??